The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom

Douglas Gomery, the recipient of the 2007 BEA Distinguished Scholarship Award, is a professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, Phillip Merrill College of Journalism. Gomery is currently the resident scholar at the Maryland Library of American Broadcasting from where he produced this history. As Christopher H. Sterling points out in his chapter in Method of Historical Analysis in Electronic Media, there are a ‘‘huge number of books on radio or television entertainment : : : the vast majority are written for a general audience : : : there is yet no overall scholarly history of broadcast programming—admittedly a daunting task’’ (p. 360). Gomery is the first to successfully assume that task, and produced the first documented history of radio and television programming in the United States. Gomery’s history is a wonderfully readable book. He’s not trying to compete with Sterling & Kittross’, Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting, or Barnouw’s three-volume trilogy of A History of Broadcasting in the United States, or the works of McChesney, Lang, or Fellows. Gomery’s work is a distinctly programming approach, providing a fascinating historical analysis. He targets radio and television programming from the impact made socially, culturally, and politically. The book is divided into four parts: Part I, The Network Radio Era, 1921–1950; Part II, Transition, 1945–1957; Part III, The Network Television Dominates, 1958– 1982; and Part IV, Contemporary History. Gomery sets the tone and direction in the Preface questioning myths and declaring that from the earliest of broadcast history ‘‘radio was a cultural industry like Hollywood : : : ’’ (p. ix). He offers a series of ‘‘key questions’’ that form his organizational approach. First, how the business was organized over time; second, the impact of broadcasting socially, culturally, and politically; and finally, how programming was organized as an art form. His

A History of Broadcasting in the United States

The Change in Young Australians' Television Viewing Behavior and What It Means for the Future of Local Content

Television has been called ‘overwhelmingly the most pervasive contemporary mass medium’. The years leading up to the introduction of television were preoccupied with political and stakeholder differences over the type of television service appropriate for the country. Television’s perceived role in moulding social and cultural attitudes and in educating the populace was too important to be left to capitalists and the market. The prime principle guiding the allocation of licences was ‘localism’. Television stations were licensed to service particular local areas, be they metropolitan or regional. A system of de facto networking emerged around program sharing and similarities of scheduling and station identity, based on the stations’ strengths in news, sports, drama and/or variety. Australian content established itself in this period as a consistent ratings success, and its growth into the present has been one of the main themes of Australian television history.

History, contexts, politics, policy

Power and Politics

Whilst many media historians have examined television’s prehistory in Britain and the United States. Literature examining the history of television in Australia, prior to the 1956 inauguration, is ...

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Marc C-Scott

Papers

The prelude to television in Australia